


The Six Times Kal'Reegar Solved Tali'Zorah's Problems and the One Time He Couldn't

by MostlyAnon



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: 5 things plus one plus one, Rare Pairing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-13
Updated: 2012-06-13
Packaged: 2017-11-07 16:29:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostlyAnon/pseuds/MostlyAnon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(The title wasn't a long enough description?)</p>
<p>Some things are easy to fix.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

The first time Kal’Reegar solved a problem for Tali’Zorah, they were strangers, or as close to strangers as quarians could be. There were ten squad leaders lined up and standing at attention before her, and Tali’Zorah had no idea how to pick only one.

She paced before them, trying to find just one that wasn’t perfect, wasn’t standing at attention like someone hit him with a cryo round. There were no imperfections and no reasons to rule any out. They were the best of the best. They would be.

She finally stopped and sighed, shaking her head. She touched the visor of her helmet in exasperation. When asking for an escort for her team, she should have mentioned that she did not need to pick them out. 

“I need a squad to escort a team of scientists on a mission deep in geth territory,” she said. “It shouldn’t be too dangerous, but I won’t assign anyone-- I would like a volunteer.”

As one, all ten marines stepped forward. She was so taken aback, she didn’t recover until one, quicker than the rest, solved the problem by taking another step forward.

“Kal’Reegar, ma’am.”


	2. 2

The second time Kal solved a problem for Tali, she was screaming frustrated curses at the sun. It had ruined _another_ drone and several very expensive pieces of equipment. The stupid star wouldn’t even reveal _why_.

“You want me to shoot if for you?” he asked from behind her.

“Do not tempt me,” she snapped. “We just lost another batch of equipment.”

“Fried it?” he asked, looking up at the column providing the shade they stood in. It was a massive, ugly thing, if she were being honest. She should feel pride or awe at her ancestors’ work, but at the moment, she was too frustrated to care.

“Yes,” she said. “Again. There isn’t enough shade in this area. The stone of the structures is too thick to get an accurate reading. We will never find anything out at this rate!”

He made a thoughtful sound and left her there to curse the sun. She watched him thread his way through the sparse shadow and disappear into the structure they were using as a camp. She spared a few curses for him and kicked the unsalvageable equipment.

He was back in a few minutes, safe in the shade of the structure’s doorway. “Ma’am, gonna have to ask you to move over here.”

She left off cursing to stomp her way to him. Because of the bosh’tet star, she had to wind her way through the shadows, clinging to the wall of the structure at some points. She was hot and miserable when she finally came to stand next to him.

He stepped in front of her, settled a rocket launcher on his shoulder, and shot the base of the column she’d just been standing under. The ancient stone rumbled as it gave way to the blast and the column swayed once before crashing to the ground. When the dust settled, she saw the stone had fallen in such a way as to create a small shelter and a large pool of shade.

“Anything else, ma’am?” Kal asked, lowering the gun.


	3. 3

The third time Kal solved a problem for Tali, she had been dreaming about him. It wasn’t the type of dream she would care to admit to yet, not in the harsh light of day. But it had been jarring to have him shake her awake and see his helmet when she had been looking into his face a second before. 

“You need to get up, Tali,” he said, and her name alone would have betrayed his stress, if his voice hadn’t. “We got geth crawling all over this place.”

“The data,” she said and he nodded. She raced along behind him as they made their way through the compound. He dragged her past the bodies of the fallen, didn’t allow her to hesitate when she would have checked on men and women she had seen alive just hours before.

 “Nothing we can do for them now, ma’am,” he said. “Priority is getting that data and getting you safe.”

The room with the bulk of the equipment was unoccupied, thankfully. She set about compiling and downloading everything she could, and was so focused on her task that she didn’t hear him leave. The doors slammed shut and the access panel flashed an emergency override lockdown. 

“Kal!” she shouted, still working.

His voice was muffled by the doors. “Need you secure. They just dropped a colossus on the rest of your equipment.”

“Shoot it with your rocket launcher!” she shouted back.

“Planning on it, ma’am.”


	4. 4 and 5

Kal’Reegar’s voice snapped through crowd, the fifth time he solved a problem for her. This was after the fourth time, when he gave her a way to redeem her name and find peace with her father. Afterward, he would hear no thanks from her, though he caught her wrist when Shepard finally began the trek back to the Normandy’s dock.

“Tali,” he said.

She turned back to him, uncertain of how to handle the knowledge that he would get himself exiled over her honor.

“Stay safe out there, ma’am.”


	5. 6

She didn’t need to read the message.

Tali knew the moment Shepard said her name.

There was no one to solve her biggest problem.


	6. 7

Tali’Zorah could not build a house.

 

She was determined to do so, anyway. She could kill geth, she could work with geth, she could save the galaxy, she could survive when so many had not. She could walk under Rannoch’s clear skies without her suit. She could build a house on her homeworld.

 

The geth came in droves to try and help. There were days where it seemed like the entire species was dedicated to helping ‘Creator Zorah’ build her house. At first, she was determined to do it alone, but after the third wall fell down almost on top of her, she let them. Even Shepard had needed help to save the galaxy. But she refused any help when it came to the porch. She would build _part_ of her house, at least.

 

So it was that after a long month, she finally finished the porch on her home. She stood back and held her breath, having been defeated by carpentry and gravity so many times before. She watched the structure sway and slowly crumple into itself. 

 

With a sob, she threw her hammer at it.

 

“You want me to shoot it for you, ma’am?” a dead man asked from behind her. She felt the question like a lightning bolt down her spine.

 

He was there, when she turned around. Several very smug looking geth primes stood around him, chittering happily between themselves. Kal was leaning heavily on a cane and wore a patch over one eye, but he was _there_. 

 

She sobbed his name and flung herself into his arms. He wasn’t steady enough to support them both and down they went; he groaned when she landed on his bad leg. She tried to scramble off him, stumbling over her own apologies, but he laughed and pulled her back.

 

“How?” she asked. “You were reported dead.”

 

“Woke up in a turian field hospital. Geth found me a bit after that. Was a near thing, for a long time,” he said. He reached up and stroked a fingertip over her hair. He still wore most of his suit-- they all did, out of habit. But his head and face were gloriously bare. “Came back as soon as I was able,” he said. “Hoped I wasn’t presuming too much, ma’am.”

 

“Kal,” she said. “I am on top of you and I am about to kiss you. Call me Tali.”

 

His grin was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She kissed him until they were both breathless.

 

“I was raised to treat the things I love with respect,” he said. “Ma’am.”

 

It was not the last time he solved a problem for her, but it would always be her favorite time.


End file.
